ITU H.264/MPEG AVC is an open standard: You can buy the sipieficatcon from ISO an implement it. That’s all you need for being an open standard. Please do not confuse this fact with being not patented : All audio/video standards are currently encumbered by patents. Neither Vorbis nor Theora is not infringing other companies intellectual properties. They were simply not commercially successful enough to get a closer examination by an US court Answer by Hugo: How is ITU relevant for software? It’s not. And I am sure ISO is very credible for defining open standards (see the OOXML fiasco).